Why the Democratic establishment should dump Clinton

Sam Smith - Based on reality rather than preferences, the establishment backing Hillary Clinton seems to have picked the wrong candidate. Here are a few reasons why:

She's not making new friends. In fact support for her has dropped during the campaign. For example, last July CNN reported that "Looking ahead to the general election, Clinton continues to hold significant leads over Bush (54% Clinton to 41% Bush) and Christie (56% Clinton to 37% Christie). She has also opened up wide leads over Rubio (56% Clinton to 39% Rubio) and Walker (57% Clinton to 38% Walker), as those two have slipped among independents. Clinton's clearest advantage, however, is over Donald Trump, 59% say they would vote for Clinton if the 2016 match-up were between her and Trump, 34% say they would back Trump." Our latest poll averages find Clinton losing to Rubio by 5 points (down from a 17 point lead in July and statistically tied with Trump (down from a 25 point lead last July). One of the major differences with Sanders - and an important one in a campaign - is that, win or lose, Sanders is regularly picking up new voters. Clinton has been a failure in this regard.

The trustworthy factor. Not only is this a a big problem in attracting independents, in a New Hampshire exit poll less than half of Democrats considered her trustworthy. And she doesn't seem to be learning from the experience. For example, she's been referring to Sanders as a one issue candidate, which is patently false.

There is a lot of unpacked baggage. Baggage that the Republicans are waiting to deal with until she is nominated. Examples: 

- The way she and her husband conned buyers of land at Whitewater, serious enough to come under scrutiny by the Arkansas Supreme Court. Thanks to the sleazy financing, about half the purchasers, many of them seniors, lost their property.

- The fact that she was the first First Lady in history to come under criminal investigation. 

- And the first First Lady to almost be indicted according to one of the special prosecutors. What if material from that case is exposed during the campaign?

- Having nine major fundraisers and/or backers who were convicted of, or pled no contest, to crime accusations. 

- The fact that in testifying under oath before Congress she said that she didn't remember, didn't know, or something similar 250 times.

- The fact that the Clintons' two partners in Whitewater were convicted of 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy. Hillary Clinton's partner and mentor at the Rose law firm, Webster Hubbell, pleaded guilty to federal mail fraud and tax evasion charges, including defrauding former clients and former partners out of more than $480,000. Hillary Clinton was mentioned 35 times in the indictment. 

- In the 1980s Hillary Clinton made a $44,000 profit on a $2,000 investment in a cellular phone franchise deal took advantage of the FCC's preference for locals, minorities and women. The franchise was almost immediately flipped to the cellular giant, McCaw.

- In 1993 HRC and David Watkins moved to oust the White House travel office in favor of World Wide Travel, Clinton's source of $1 million in fly-now-pay-later campaign trips that essentially financed the last stages of the campaign without the bother of reporting a de facto contribution. The White House fired seven long-term employees for alleged mismanagement and kickbacks. The director, Billy Dale, charged with embezzlement, was acquitted in less than two hours by the jury.

- Two months after commencing the Whitewater scheme, Hillary Clinton invested $1,000 in cattle futures. Within a few days she had a $5,000 profit. Before bailing out she earns nearly $100,000 on her investment. Many years later, several economists will calculate that the chances of earning such returns legally were one in 250 million.

- In 1996, Hillary Clinton's Rose law firm billing records, sought for two years by congressional investigators and the special prosecutor, were found in the back room of the personal residence at the White House. Clinton said she had no idea how they got there.

- Drug dealer Jorge Cabrera gave enough to the Democrats to have his picture taken with both Hillary Clinton and Al Gore. . . Cabrera was arrested in January 1996 inside a cigar warehouse in Dade County, where more than 500 pounds of cocaine had been hidden. He and several accomplices were charged with having smuggled 3,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States through the Keys

- In 2000, Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign returned $22,000 in soft money to a businesswoman linked to a Democratic campaign contribution from a drug smuggler in Havana.

- In August 2000, Hillary Clinton held a huge Hollywood fundraiser for her Senate campaign. It was very successful. The only problem was that, by a long shot, she didn't report all the money contributed: $800K by the US government's ultimate count in a settlement and $2 million according to the key contributor and convicted con Peter Paul. This is, in election law, the moral equivalent of not reporting a similar amount on your income tax. It is a form of fraud. Hillary Clinton's defense is that she didn't know about it

There's never been a leading presidential candidate with this sort of record. Thanks to the media ignoring much of this, it is not generally known how many controversial Clinton issues have not yet been brought forth.

The Clinton political myth - One of the Clinton myths is that they are superb politicians. It is seldom mentioned that Bill Clinton won his first presidential election with only 43% of the vote and won reelection with 49%.

There were other serious problems with Clinton. During the Clinton administration, Democrats lost over 1,200 state legislative seats. Further, the Democrats lost control of 9 legislatures and for the first time since 1954 the GOP controlled more state legislatures than the Democrats. In addition, the GOP won 45 seats in the House, 7 in the Senate, 11 governorships and 439 Democratic officeholders switched to the Democratic Party. Only three Republicans went the other way. In short, the Clinton administration was a disaster for the Democrats.

And perhaps the most important, but seldom mentioned, factor in the outcome of Gore's attempt to follow him was the impact of the Clinton scandals. 68% of voters thought Clinton would go down in history more for his scandals than for his leadership. 44% said that the scandals were somewhat to very important and 57% thought the country to be on the wrong moral track.  In short, the individual who did the most harm to Gore was Bill Clinton. If Gore had distanced himself from the Clinton moral miasma he would probably have become president. Although Democrats try to blame Nader for Gore's loss, in fact the biggest factor was Bush's  14 point rise in the polls from September to October during the campaign, a rise boosted by the Clinton scandals.

In short, the Democratic establishment is badly risking its own future clinging to the Clinton myth and not looking at the facts.